No justification

For the most part, the Montreal Gazette's editorial board is on target in discussing the secrecy surrounding the Cons' food safety sellout. But it's worth pointing out how part of the column seems to offer more cover than the Cons deserve based on their track record of cover-ups:

The plan, drawn up by the federal agriculture department and approved by the Treasury Board last November, has been held back owing to what the department calls "significant communications risks," which in bureaucratese means it is likely to incite a furious uproar.

The document spelling out the plan fell into the hands of Canwest News Service. The immediate reaction from food-safety experts fully justified the government's hesitation in releasing it. "A really dangerous thing," said Michael Hansen, a leading authority on BSE. "Unfathomable and potentially disastrous," said another academic expert, though on condition of anonymity. The general line of argument against the proposal is that it is the equivalent of putting foxes in charge of maintaining the nation's henhouses.

At best, one could say that italicized phrase merely reflects an inelegant choice of words rather than a form of direct approval of the Cons' information suppression. But in the face of a federal government so bent on obsessive secrecy, there's a need to be particularly careful about wording which could give the impression that a government can ever be "fully justified" either in enacting policy which can't withstand public scrutiny, or in hiding that policy to avoid deserved criticism.